67th BOOK OF THE Bible, NATURE, CARING FOR NATURE, THE WORD, CREATION

THE  67TH  BOOK  OF  THE  BIBLE?

Hi everyone!

How did your week go? Mine was busy with extra work with another client, extra work marketing my novel and extra work getting the next book in the series written. Ahhh! I would love it a lot more if I also had extra time for sleep, ha-ha!

Speaking of extra’s…have you ever heard of the 67th book of the Bible? In the Protestant Bible there are 66 books; the Catholic Bible has 73. I looked it up and got a variety of answers. Someone who is obviously Catholic said, “Count back from 73.” That would be 1Peter in the Catholic Bible. Someone else said it was the maps in the back of the Bible. Another person said it is the Lamb’s book of Life. But others say it is nature. Can this be true; can nature actually be a “book” from God? It sounds good. After all, didn’t God create the earth and the

rest of the universe? Isn’t that nature?

The problem with that is, even though God gave nature (every natural thing around us) to mankind, humanity then worships it—the creation—rather than the Creator. The fact is God gave nature “to humanity so that we could look into the universe around us and see His glory.”¹ 

The Bible mentions nature multiple times. God loves his

creation too. Scripture tells us in Genesis 1 that God made the animals, the plants, the sun, moon and stars, and mankind: and that God saw that it was good.  1 Corinthians 9:9 says “For it is written in the law of Moses, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take

care for oxen?” Proverbs 12:10 says “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” Mathew 10:29 states “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.” 

It is obvious that God cares about all of His creation. But “those who promote nature as a missing aspect of God’s revelation (the so-called ‘67th book of the Bible’) need to

understand two crucial fallacies with this idea: first, nature is cursed; second, our observations of nature are not independent from our presuppositions (to suppose or assume beforehand; take for granted in advance). 

“Many who trust in humans as the highest authority reject the Curse as true history and thus deny its effect on our observations…while nature does reflect some of God’s qualities (Romans 1:20), if we trusted the nature we see now to show who God is, we would see the death, violence, and plant and

animal defense and predatory structures and imagine God as reveling in death and destruction.”²

Likewise “nature itself does not lead to false conclusions about the past, but people who look at nature can be misled by their own mistaken presuppositions. Those who look to nature as an objective source of God’s revelation (or an objective source of scientific truth) are ultimately looking, instead, at their own

preconceptions—even if they don’t realize they have them.

“When we examine these problems, we see that nature should never be put on the same level as the Bible. When the Bible mentions nature and the Word together, we find that only one of them is permanent and

foundational for knowing and fulfilling His will. Nature—this universe—will pass away and be rolled up like a scroll (Isaiah 34:4), but God’s Word will endure.” ³

As for the 67th book of the (Protestant) Bible…nature is the Lord’s creation, not a book. 

Until next time, God bless and take care!

Willow Dressel

References:

^1-3https://answersingenesis.org/the-word-of-god/nature-67th-book-of-bible/?utm_source=articlesmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_content=featurebutton&utm_campaign=20160409&mc_cid=a251bb372b&mc_eid=ec76e61712